Happy birthday, Julia Child!
I am so excited to be a part of today's Fantastical Food Fight fun as we celebrate Julia's birthday. Thank you, Sarah, for creating this theme! If you'd like to join us as we celebrate different themes each month, find us here! To celebrate, I made this cauliflower gratin, a lighter version, inspired by her decadent one!
Our challenge was to create one of Julia's recipes, or use one of hers to inspire one of ours! My family is watching their food intake, so I wanted to be respectful of their work yet provide a tasty dish to all of you. Here's what I came up with.
A creamy white sauce, using lower fat milk and less cheese. To keep the dish decadent, I add swiss cheese to the top of the sauce before baking. I use less cheese overall, but still enough to feel like the dish is amazing!
Yield: 6
Cauliflower Gratin
prep time: 10 minscook time: 40 minstotal time: 50 mins
A lightened version of the Julia Child classic.
ingredients:
1 head of cauliflower, broken into chunks
8 c water
2 c milk, divided
1/2 medium onion
nutmeg
salt
pepper
3 1/2 T cornstarch
1/2 c freshly grated parmesan
1/2 c freshly grated swiss cheese
instructions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Put 8 cups of water into a large saucepan. Add cauliflower and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook until cauliflower is fork tender. In the meantime, pour 1 and 1/2 cups milk into a saucepan. Cut the onion into large chunks. Place in milk and bring to a simmer. Simmer 1-2 minutes, then turn off heat. Let set for 10 minutes. Remove onion and discard. Add nutmeg, salt and pepper to your liking. In the 1/2 c of remaining milk, stir in cornstarch. Turn the heat back on and whisk in the cornstarch mixture. Whisk until mixture thickens, about 4 minutes. Add parmesan and stir until cheese melts. Check cauliflower for doneness. Butter or grease a baking dish. Drain cauliflower, and put into baking dish. Pour white sauce over cauliflower. Sprinkle on swiss cheese. Bake in oven until cheese melts, about 10 minutes. Watch carefully as the cheese melts quickly. Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes. Serve warm.
Created using The Recipes Generator
